By Raffique Shah
November 19, 2006

Besides Alcoa not even referring to its highly-touted new technologies for “safely” disposing spent pot lining (SPL), both the company and the Government have made no reference to the proposed plant being used for recycling aluminium cans and other waste. If Alcoa were to promise to absorb, say, 75 per cent of the beverage cans that prove to be as dangerous to our environment as smelters, I’ll probably back its construction. In the UK, where an estimated five billion cans are used every year, Alcan has established the only dedicated recycling plant for beverage cans.
Continue reading Death and development →

By Stephen Kangal

In a reliable Guardian poll published on Thursday 2 November, ninety-five percent of persons interviewed accused Cabinet Ministers of being increasingly arrogant, insensitive and disrespectful of the polity that elected them. Consider the obscene and vulgar conduct of bad john MP Achong at the Chatham Youth Centre. Against his own Point Fortin constituents. That is the beginning of the end of the Manning regime for they are sowing the seeds of their own political demise as they did in pre-1986. Power has corrupted them absolutely.
Continue reading The Arrogant and Insensitive →

By Linda E. Edwards
November 14, 2006

According to headlines in the major dailies, and substantiated in the accompanying articles of Nov.12, 2006; people of Indo-Trinidadian descent are besieging the visiting Vice-president of India for relief from the discrimination suffered daily in Trinidad and Tobago at the hands of the Afro-Caribbean and other people. This letter is in response to those pleas.
Continue reading The “Indians” Are At It Again! →

By Raffique Shah
November 12, 2006

I think Alcoa spokesman Wade Hughes is “damn farse and outa place” (let him go learn our dialect) to suggest that Trinidad is “ideally positioned to become the aluminium hub of the Caribbean”. But Hughes got his license to make such insulting pronouncements from none other than Prime Minister Patrick Manning. When the PM referred to his fellow citizens, distinguished and ordinary, as being “dotish”, what could we expect from a “preferred” alien? Hughes and Alcoa, thanks to the “dotish” stance adopted by Manning and company on constructing aluminium smelters here, have been given “rank” over all of us natives. It was always this way as governments genuflected to multinational corporations, making them overlords of our nature-given resources.
Continue reading Manning, Alcoa must come clean →

By Stephen Kangal

PM Manning, Minister Rowley and Alcoa have assured the Chatham villagers that the proposed third generation, state -of-the-art aluminum smelter earmarked for construction in the ecologically fragile and sensitive S.W. Peninsula will pose no serious threat to the human, physical and ambient environment. Accordingly I wish to suggest that having regard to this undertaking Chaguaramas would appear to be a superior site to Chatham as the preferred location for the Alcoa plant.
Continue reading Site Smelter in Chaguaramas →

Posted by: Errol F. Hosein

The ongoing behaviour of Prime Minister Patrick Manning suggests that he is driven by the ghost of Dr. Eric Williams. One must note that earlier in his career as Prime Minister, Mr. Manning referred to himself as the “Father” of the Nation. I suspect that he has not fully recovered as a result of what appeared to be a political “faux Pas” to the casual observer.
Continue reading The delusions of a Prime Minister →

By Raffique Shah
October 22, 2006

Two years ago a report from some UN agency stated that 300,000 people in Trinidad and Tobago lived “on less than US$1 a day”. Today, with oil dollars gushing through the country, we have managed to lower this number to, I think, 170,000 paupers. When I read statistics like these I vigorously shake my head, trying to figure out if I am living in T&T or on some other planet. Although I cannot claim to know every district in the country, I try to figure out how these highly paid experts come up with their numbers when I don’t see evidence of such indigence.
Continue reading Statistics and damn lies →

By Stephen Kangal

Government cannot be honestly embarking on a proposed Rapid Rail System (RRS) at a capital cost of $20 billion over 4 years and leave the people in the dark. They must be told how their money will be spent and what real reliefs to motorists and travelers will be provided by this astronomical monstrosity.
Continue reading Rapid Rail Questions →